


I'll Be Seeing You

by TheIronDragon10



Series: Thasmin One-Shots [9]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, I am not sorry, This totally happened because I have feelings about Oppy, Though it's more like how Oppy got home and Doctor feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 20:00:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17814566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIronDragon10/pseuds/TheIronDragon10
Summary: Yaz wants to know, did anyone ever bring Oppy home?





	I'll Be Seeing You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lesbianglinda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianglinda/gifts).



> Okay, this is absolutely happening because I have a lot of feelings about Oppy. I wrote it in one sitting so pardon any mistakes, I swear I'll go back to fix them.
> 
> The title comes from the last song NASA played Oppy before it's official mission shut down: I'll Be Seeing You - Billie Holiday
> 
> This one is for the Discord who totally encouraged it! Also, I know the Thasmin thing probably seemed irrelevant here but I feel like it added to the emotions.
> 
> Double also, this goes to my favorite theatre nerd for giving me the idea for this, I hope it lives up despite the intellectual theft!

**_I’ll Be Seeing You_ **

 

Mars Exploration Rover - B, commonly known as Opportunity, and affectionately referred to as Oppy, had the hopes of the tiny speck of a planet on her metaphorical shoulders.

 

In many ways, the exploration rover became the best reflection of the resilience of humanity. Her mission span had been 90 sol, about 90 terrestrial days. She had gone above and beyond, exploring the surface of the big red planet for the better part of the last 15 years, with the mutterings and directions and hopes of mission control giving her a driving push. 

 

Sandstorms, craters, and the fickle freezing temperatures of Mars were no match for the rover that could, and would, increase the attention of what can be found beyond earth. 

 

Except for that one time. 

 

Mission control assumed it would be like any other sandstorm. Oppy had dealt with fifteen years of Mars’ atmosphere, in craters and muddy land, and through miles of bad terrain, they were prepared and always ready for Oppy going offline to conserve energy, she had done it before. 

 

The planet-encircling dust event kicked off Oppy’s battery on SOL 5111, and since then the desperate scientists had heard nothing. 

 

They held hope for the batteries to recharge when the dust settled. 

 

They held hope for their signals to suddenly bleep awake. 

 

They listened for the rover updating them on her hibernation sequences. 

 

They waited, and listened for seven months, sending periodical signals to jolt her awake--there were many things to see in Mars and they refused to believe it was over. 

 

Opportunity had beat every odd since her landing in 2004, and catastrophic as the dust storm was, it couldn’t be it.

 

* * *

  
  


Oppy trudged carefully through the rocky surface that had been her home for the past fifteen years. She knew her humans were overtly excitable, because everyday she went past their initial hopes, they greeted her with that uniquely human affection. Everytime she discovered something new, or surpassed another insurmountable challenge, she would be greeted with the crackling voice of a human congratulating her.

 

Her humans were extremely dedicated to her, and her mission, and thanks to them she never felt alone, despite how many miles away she was. 

 

So, as the dust and the wind raged around her, the calls of mission control asking her on an update that she couldn’t send, Oppy began to wonder. Funny how humanity never realized that their attachment to the machines they created could give them an almost human like quality. 

 

She began to wonder about the last fifteen years. Mainly, the extreme dedication of the team behind her mission. From the moment her systems engaged, in a small lab in NASA, her team was dedicated to her success. Everyday she roamed through the red planet there was always an engineer talking to her, talking to the other people in the room a hundred thousand miles away, always keeping her busy with the coming and goings of earth.

 

The first discovery she made was celebrated far and wide by the research scientists, and they never forgot to thank her for every sample she analyzed and every picture she took. 

 

When she got stuck in a sand dune many years ago, the techs in charge of figuring out her next steps always made sure to say they would get her out, some would even softly remind her she wasn’t alone, and they had her back. 

 

People would probably think it was weird, to tell a seemingly cold machine that they had her back. But it was comforting, in a way it created the bond between the rover a hundred thousand miles away, and the people who more than anything wanted her to succeed, to keep on discovering new things on the red planet for many years. 

 

But as it got cold, and her battery drained so slowly one could almost believe she could feel it, Oppy never felt alone. 

 

“My battery is low and it’s getting dark” she managed to bleep out, hoping against hope the message would reach earth.

 

Before her systems went into hibernation, she heard the soft crackle of the head of the mission whisper “It’s okay Oppy, we’ve got you”

 

* * *

  
  


“Hey gang I was wondering if--are you okay?”

 

The Doctor carefully tippy toed into the room, making sure to not disturb her fam, who were all scattered in the sitting room, faces first into their laptops and phones, all with the expressions that unmistakably meant sadness. She stood behind Yasmin, peering over at her screen expecting the eulogy of a loved one, only to see pictures of a robot on wheels from the NASA website. The Doctor knew she didn’t quite understand humans, but this was another level of strange.

 

“Uh, Yaz?”

 

The police officer shook off her stupor, giving the Doctor what was probably supposed to be a smile and really just came off as a grimace. The Doctor, ever so clumsy but so attached, scrambled over the arm of the couch to hug her distraught girlfriend, a hand going up and down her back soothingly. Yeah, she really didn’t understand humans.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

“Does she ever come home, Doctor?”

 

“She? Who are we talking about?”

 

“Oppy” 

 

Yaz looked down at her screen, the picture of the robot still on the screen, the words  _ My battery is Low and It’s getting dark _ hovering above it. 

 

“Does it matter?”

 

Never in a million years did she think the Doctor, who was ever so attached to her own time machine, would be anything but sympathetic to the heartache humanity shared over the exploration robot. But she really didn’t look moved? Hell, Yaz would probably say she looked annoyed. 

 

“What do you mean does it matter? She’s alone, in Mars!”

 

“It’s a machine Yaz” 

 

Ryan and Graham looked at each other in shock, definitely caught off guard as much as Yasmin herself.

 

“Doc, the TARDIS is a machine”

 

“Oh no, that’s different” she waved her hand in the air to make her point as she talked “the TARDIS is alive, she’s a creature of time, she can talk to you, she’s not just a machine”

 

Ryan scoffed at the Time Lord. Granted, he had been skeptical to begin with as well, but he too had gotten insanely attached to the exploration robot “Oppy was alive too” he tilted the screen of his phone towards the Time Lord, where he had the rover updates from Nasa queued up “They’ve been trying to wake her up for seven months”

 

“Okay?” the Doctor scrunched her face in annoyance again “I don’t understand the fuzz. It shut down, mission over?”

 

“She” Graham pointed out “Opportunity was a she. She beat the odds on Mars by almost fifteen years” 

 

“Great.  _ She _ beat the odds. Call it a day and move on to the next one. It’s not like there won’t be more rovers”.

 

This here was a thing that, no matter how long she travelled with any human the Doctor couldn’t understand. She knew of that uncanny thing humans had to pack bond with everything. Every other day she found it adorable, but today, it just sounded strange. They were all sitting there, sad and downtrodden over an exploration rover they probably had never seen, and would never see. A machine created solely with the purpose of collecting samples and data on Mars. It was one of many that humanity would send before its manned leaps to the stars, it wasn’t uncommon to lose contact with one of them, why was this one so important?

 

“You really don’t get it, do you?”

 

The Doctor looked over at Yaz, who had curled up into a ball in her arms earlier, still scrolling through her phone, looking at the hundreds of tweets and posts people were making. She reached over to grab her laptop, booting it to the NASA feed, where well wishers were leaving messages of support for the Opportunity mission.

 

“This is humanity at its best, mourning over a robot we barely knew anything about” she carefully untangled herself from the befuddled Time Lord, though making sure to flash her a soft smile “You should think about what that might mean love, goodnight” 

 

“Goodnight Doc” Graham groaned about his back as he paced away from the couch, his phone still in his hands with videos of people talking about the rover playing nonstop.

 

Ryan peered over to the confused Time Lord, smiling softly at the woman who was always so human and yet so alien. It was nice to see she could also get caught up in understanding how weird people could be. 

 

“Here Doc” he reached over for the laptop, bringing up the ‘Opportunity, wake up!’ Playlist that NASA had been using to get something out of their rover “this might help you. Goodnight”

 

“Goodnight fam” the Doctor proceeded to go through every forum, news site, blog and video, desperately trying to understand the new conundrum that was Opportunity the rover.

 

* * *

 

 

It was not an unexpected thing to wake up rattled in the TARDIS. Usually it meant that the Doctor was up and about, getting them into trouble before they could get their morning tea. Though recently she had chilled a bit, spending more of her morning time cuddling with Yasmin than sending them off to some unknown place a hundred light years away.

 

Today though? Today the fam met up in the hallway, hair all over the place and eyes heavy with sleep because in the distance, muffled likely by doors and hallways, they could hear the Doctor arguing with the TARDIS.

 

“Where is it!?” bleeping and groans answered the clearly hassled Time Lord, whom they found head first into a gigantic chest, flinging clothes over her shoulder, boots waving in the air as she argued “Oi! Where is my space suit!?”

 

“What do you need your space suit for?”

 

The Doctor screeched in surprise, falling all the way into the chest, groaning as she pulled a leather jacket that was poking her uncomfortably.

 

“Doc, are you okay!?” Graham peered over Yasmin’s shoulder, trying to not let Ryan’s gasps of laughter get to him.

 

“Uh yes. Sorry, did I wake you?”

 

“A bit, yes” Yaz reached down to pull the Doctor back up, her head shaking both in amusement and to shake off the sleep still hanging over her “what are you doing?”

 

“I need my suit. Can’t go out of the TARDIS without some protection, you know?”

 

“Sweetheart, you’re not making any sense” Yaz looked at the woman worryingly, she looked more disheveled than usual, and she could almost swear her eyes were puffy, the way they would look after crying “Doctor?”

 

“Aha!” from behind a curtain, the Doctor walked out with one pant leg on of a bright orange jumpsuit, a fishbowl like helmet in her hand “Knew she was hiding it from me”

 

“Doctor, Hey!” Yasmin put her hands on the Doctor’s shoulders, keeping her from moving past them, Ryan and Graham behind her “What is going on”

 

The Doctor looked up at Yasmin, mesmerized by her brown eyes shining at her with confusion and love, then over at Graham who couldn’t help but look worried for his family, and finally at Ryan who had stopped laughing and now simply looked concerned, and her final doubts about what she wanted to do cracked. Her green eyes flooded with tears, though she had promised herself after crying for most of the night, that she would keep her cool--so much for that.

 

“Oh no, sweetheart what’s happening?”

 

“I can’t leave her there” 

 

Ryan sighed behind them, finally catching on to the break she had probably caught sometime overnight, closely followed by Graham who found the situation remarkably adorable.

 

“ ‘Her’ Doc? Oppy?”

 

“Yes Oppy” the Time Lord shoved her arms into the sleeves of the jumpsuit, ignoring the beeping and groaning of the cranky time machine “I can’t just leave her there”

 

“What happened with she’s just another rover?” Ryan mocked her voice to soften the question, smiling back at the only slightly offended alien.

 

“I would go insane if the TARDIS shut down in some planet a million miles away. I can’t let her mission heads live in uncertainty about her. It’s not right”

 

“Doctor…”

 

“They tried for seven months” the Doctor looked down at her hands, entangled with Yasmin’s hands trying her best to find the words to explain her change of heart “Yaz, the TARDIS means the world to me, she’s my best friend, this is my home, and I would try and keep trying for eternity if she disappeared” 

 

“Right, but you said...”

 

“I know what I said, I was wrong” the Doctor smiled softly at the beeps and screeches the time machine spewed out, slightly glad that the fam could not understand her “Clearly, she was made for more than her prime directive. Yaz, I think Oppy deserves to go home”

 

“I think so too”

 

* * *

 

Oppy could hear the crackling noise of her systems engaging again. She could see her thermostat pick up a temperature that definitely did not correspond with the freezing cold temperatures of the last fifteen years, and beneath her wheels there was something that no one could ever think was dirt. 

 

But, she had shut down? She remembers going into hibernation, the soft voice of her mission head telling her they had her. How could she have moved? 

 

Finally, her camera kicked into gear, though the black and white landscape she expected to see was not there. Instead, three people stood in front of her, and they looked like they were holding their breaths in. Well, what she remembers people holding their breaths in looked like.

 

One of them, a woman who vaguely resemble someone who Oppy had seen before shipping out, stepped up to her lense, cautiously. 

 

“Oppy?”

 

The two guys behind her took in a sharp breath yet again, one looking at the screens behind Oppy with cautious optimism, and the other not taking his eyes off the outside structure, waiting for any indication that she was awake.

 

A soft clicking, the clicking of her lenses taking a picture, set of a flood of people running into the room, all cheering happily, hell Oppy even saw some tears in some eyes. The screens behind lit up with the images of the three engineers looking at her with baited breath, underneath a coded sequence that said “Opportunity systems online”

 

The room laughed happily, all still in suspended disbelief that this was really their survivor rover, their amazing exploration rover that had beat the odds and was now beating one more. Oppy remained still the whole time, her systems still trying to catch up with everything in her surroundings, usually used to a more quiet and lonely life. 

 

By her a man with gray hair, who looked extremely familiar, leaned over carefully, patting the top of her camera mount, and softly whispering “I told you we had you. Welcome home Oppy”

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to tell Oppy's story here, but there will probably be a part 2 of how they retrieved her and brought her to mission control. I'd love some opinions on this!!


End file.
